Victor Emmanuel III (Italian: Vittorio Emanuele Ferdinando Maria Gennaro di Savoia; 11 November 1869 – 28 December 1947) was King of Italy from 29 July 1900 until his abdication on 9 May 1946. A member of the House of Savoy, he also reigned as Emperor of Ethiopia from 1936 to 1941 and King of the Albanians from 1939 to 1943, following the Italian invasions of Ethiopia and Albania. During his reign of nearly 46 years, which began after the assassination of his father Umberto I, the Kingdom of Italy became involved in World War I and in World War II. His reign also encompassed the birth, rise, and fall of the Fascist regime.
The first fourteen years of Victor Emmanuel's reign were dominated by prime minister Giovanni Giolitti, who focused on industrialization and passed several democratic reforms, such as the introduction of universal male suffrage. In foreign policy, Giolitti's Italy distanced itself from the fellow members of the Triple Alliance (the German Empire and Austria-Hungary) and colonized Libya following the Italo-Turkish War. Giolitti was succeeded by Antonio Salandra, Paolo Boselli, and Vittorio Emanuele Orlando. The First World War brought about Italian victory over the Habsburg Empire and the annexation of the Italian-speaking provinces of Trento and Trieste, completing the national unity of Italy, and the southern part of German-speaking Tyrol (South Tyrol). For this reason, Victor Emmanuel was labelled the "King of Victory". However, a part of Italian nationalists protested against the partial violation of the 1915 Treaty of London and what they defined as a "mutilated victory", demanding the annexation of Croatian-speaking territories in Dalmatia and temporarily occupying the town of Fiume without royal assent.
During the early 1920s, several short-serving prime ministers, including the well-respected Giolitti, serving an unprecedented fifth term as prime minister, could not unify the country in the face of the growing Italian fascist movement. Strengthened by the economic downturn facing the country, the National Fascist Party led the March on Rome, and Victor Emmanuel appointed Benito Mussolini as prime minister. He remained silent on the domestic political abuses of Fascist Italy, and he accepted the additional crowns of the Emperor of Ethiopia in 1936 and the King of Albania in 1939 as a result of Italian imperialism under fascism. When the Second World War broke out in 1939, Victor Emmanuel advised Mussolini against entering the war. In June 1940, he relented and granted Mussolini sweeping powers to enter and conduct the war.
After the Allied invasion of Sicily in July 1943, Victor Emmanuel discharged Mussolini and appointed Pietro Badoglio as the new Prime Minister. After weeks of negotiations, the Kingdom of Italy signed the armistice of Cassibile with the Allies in September 1943. During the German reprisal (Operation Achse), Victor Emmanuel III and the government fled to Brindisi, while the Germans established the Italian Social Republic as a puppet state in Northern Italy. Having signed the armistice with the Allies, he then declared war on Germany in October. After the liberation of Rome by Allied forces in June 1944, Victor Emmanuel transferred most of his powers to his son Umberto, effectively ending his involvement in the war and in the government of Italy. Victor Emmanuel officially abdicated his throne in 1946 in favour of his son, who became King Umberto II. Victor Emmanuel hoped to strengthen support for the monarchy against an ultimately successful referendum to abolish it.
After the 1946 Italian institutional referendum established the Republic, Victor Emmanuel went into exile to Alexandria, where he died and was buried the following year in St. Catherine's Cathedral, Alexandria. In 2017, his remains were returned to rest in Italy following an agreement between presidents Sergio Mattarella and Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.
Victor Emmanuel III was born in Naples in the Kingdom of Italy to King Umberto I and Margherita of Savoy, the Queen consort. He was named after his grandfather, Victor Emmanuel II, King of Sardinia and later King of Italy. Unlike his paternal first cousin's son, the 1.98 m (6 ft 6 in) tall Amedeo, 3rd Duke of Aosta, Victor Emmanuel was short of stature even by 19th-century standards, standing a diminutive 1.52 m (5 ft 0 in) tall, probably due to the consanguinity of his parents (Umberto and Margherita were first cousins, as were his paternal grandparents Vittorio Emanuele II and Adelaide of Austria).
From birth until his accession, Victor Emmanuel was known as "The Prince of Naples". On 24 October 1896, he married Princess Elena of Montenegro.
On 29 July 1900, at the age of 30, Victor Emmanuel acceded to the throne upon his father's assassination. The only advice that his father Umberto ever gave his heir was "Remember: to be a king, all you need to know is how to sign your name, read a newspaper, and mount a horse." His early years showed evidence that, by the standards of the Savoy monarchy, he was a man committed to constitutional government. Even though his father was killed by an anarchist, the new king showed a commitment to constitutional freedoms.
Although parliamentary rule had been firmly established in Italy, the Statuto Albertino, or constitution, granted the king considerable residual powers. For instance, he had the right to appoint the prime minister even if the individual in question did not command majority support in the Chamber of Deputies. A shy and somewhat withdrawn individual, the King hated the day-to-day stresses of Italian politics, though the country's chronic political instability forced him to intervene on no fewer than ten occasions between 1900 and 1922 to solve parliamentary crises.
When the First World War began, Italy at first remained neutral, despite being part of the Triple Alliance (albeit it was signed on defensive terms and Italy objected that the Sarajevo assassination did not qualify as aggression). In April 1915, Italy signed the secret Treaty of London committing itself to enter the war on the side of the Triple Entente. Most of the politicians opposed the war, and Italy's Chamber of Deputies forced Prime Minister Antonio Salandra to resign. At this juncture, Victor Emmanuel declined Salandra's resignation and personally made the decision for Italy to enter the war. The king possessed the right to do so under the Statuto, which stipulated that ultimate authority for declaring war rested with the crown.
Demonstrations in favour of the war were staged in Rome, with 200,000 gathering on 16 May 1915, in the Piazza del Popolo. The war effort was widely considered corrupt and disorganized, while the unexpected loss of life suffered by the Royal Italian Army, especially at the great defeat of Caporetto, and the post–World War I recession turned the King against what he perceived as an inefficient political bourgeoisie. Nevertheless, the King visited the various areas of Northern Italy suffering repeated strikes and mortar hits from elements of the fighting there, and demonstrated considerable courage and concern in personally visiting many people, while his wife, the queen, took turns with nurses in caring for Italy's wounded. It was at this time, the period of World War I, that the King enjoyed the genuine affection of the majority of his people. Still, during the war he received about 400 threatening letters from people of every social background, mostly members of the working class. On 8 November 1917, he met with the prime ministers of Britain (Lloyd George) and France (Paul Painlevé) at the Peschiera conference, where he defended Italy's strategic decisions.
The economic depression which followed World War I gave rise to much extremism among Italy's sorely tried working classes. This caused the country as a whole to become politically unstable. Benito Mussolini, soon to be Italy's Fascist dictator, took advantage of this instability for his rise to power.
In 1922, Mussolini led a force of his Fascist supporters on a March on Rome. Prime Minister Luigi Facta and his cabinet drafted a decree of martial law. After some hesitation the King refused to sign it, citing doubts about the ability of the army to contain the uprising without setting off a civil war.